


Ventura Highway

by novak



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-05 13:08:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/723642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novak/pseuds/novak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As of yet, Castiel Novak's life has been horrifically uneventful. He attended high school like most other children, graduated with good grades, like most other children. He got into the University of Kansas, like most other children. He's surrounded by familiar faces and he's never left his hometown for more than a week at a time.</p><p>However, everything changes when he meets a talented mechanic named Dean Winchester, with his bow-legs and green eyes and a sleek black car whose name and make Castiel does not know the name of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i'm going to add chapters of this as i write them, holla. prepare yourself for domestic bliss.
> 
> HUGE thanks to my beta [astrobots](http://astrobots.tumblr.com/). ur beautiful

As of yet, Castiel Novak's life has been horrifically uneventful. He attended high school like most other children, graduated with good grades, like most other children. He got into the University of Kansas, like most other children. He's surrounded by familiar faces and he's never left his hometown for more than a week at a time - and even then, it's usually for school trips. 

He no longer lives alone and instead in a college dorm room with a bright-eyed, too-eager young man named Chuck. He hangs from Castiel's every sentence like he speaks the word of God; it's unnerving, but flattering on some distant level. Castiel is sure that nothing he says is ever of great importance; recited facts learned in text books, poems he's studying for his English major, or a book he'd like to read if he had the time. Chuck always responds, animated and bubbly, like he's desperate to earn Castiel's approval - like it means something.  
Castiel helps Chuck with his homework most nights, dotting at lines of Chuck's messy chicken-scratch handwriting with his favourite green pen, making soft, gentle comments about sentence structure and proper placement of punctuation. 

Chuck is eternally grateful and shows it by making breakfast for Castiel most mornings. It's pathetically domestic, but it's a routine. 

He works at a local diner, small and somewhat shabby but homely and welcoming all the same. The pay is measly but it's enough for gas in his car, a beat-up beige Volkswagen Golf Mk1. He has a love/hate relationship with it - mostly hate.  
More often than not, he's the busboy of the diner joint, the messenger pigeon. He asks people what they'd like, and he brings it to them. He likes it; following orders is easy, methodical. Comforting.

Things change on the day his car breaks down at an intersection. He's horrified, all wide eyes and wet tears threatening to spill already as he hurries out of his car amidst the honking of the people waiting behind him. His heart is pounding in his chest, kicking out against his ribs like a snared hare, and he tries to keep himself calm as he heaves his car towards the side of the road, its hazard lights blinking weakly in the midday sunshine. Sweat beads along his hairline as he slips into the car to pull the handbrake - the last thing he needs is for the shitbox to roll back into traffic. 

He sits there, in the driver's seat, running his hands through his hair and pulling at it, heart leaping into his throat. What's wrong with his car? Can he afford to fix it? A rush of anxiety has his blood roaring in his ears. He buries his face in his hands and tries to remember to breathe before fumbling his phone from the cup holder beside him. He'll call Chuck.  
He punches through his contacts until he finds him, mashes the little green phone symbol and brings it to his ear, pinching the bridge of his nose in an attempt to release some pent up tension. 

Chuck picks up on the seventh ring, his voice hushed; he's obviously standing outside of a classroom, hand cupped around the mouthpiece. "Castiel? Cas? Is everything alright? I'm in class."  
He takes a moment to answer, because he knows his voice is going to be tight, weak, balled up in his throat. "My car broke down," he whispers, "At the intersection near the diner. I have groceries in the back. The food's going to go bad." He sounds like a child pleading with their mother for help.  
He takes Chuck's silence as a good sign; he's thinking. He can practically hear cogs and gears turning, whirring inside Chuck's skull. "I have a number for a tow company in my phone. They've got a garage; they can fix it up for you, Cas. I'll text you the number, okay?"  
"Okay," he says, his voice watery. Chuck makes a noise of sympathy, says a soft, "See you," and hangs up.

The text comes some fifteen seconds later, with the company name - Singer Auto - and number. He calls it, anxiety clawing at the insides of his stomach like a trapped cat. He feels as though he might be sick.  
"Hello?" The voice on the other end of the line is gruff and harsh and Castiel tries not to feel immediately intimidated. He sounds like the type of man to have a beard, probably with a few grey hairs peppered through - like his father's stubble when it grows out.  
"Hello? Is this Singer Auto?" Castiel asks, hushed, talking down to his scuffed, too-old shoes as he drags them across the stained floor mat.  
"Speak up, boy. I can't hear a damn thing y'sayin'."  
Castiel's voice cracks, "Is this Singer Auto?"  
"Yeah, kid. What can I do for ya?" The man's voice seems to soften some with the audible waver of Castiel's words.  
"My car broke down on the intersection of Jefferson and Pine. Near The Roadhouse Diner? It won't start. It has gas but, it won't start. And I'm stuck and -"  
The man cuts him off. "Hey now, kid, you start worryin' like that and your melon'll burst a gasket. I'll be there in fifteen with the truck to come getcha."

Cas sits, running his hands through his hair and checking on the groceries, for the next fifteen minutes. The ice-cream he got for Chuck is beginning to melt and Castiel feels a pang of guilt. He pushes a bag of frozen french fries on top of it in a feeble attempt to keep it cold. 

The man from Singer Auto arrives right on time, pulling up to the curb in front of Castiel after pulling a parking manoeuvre that Cas is quite sure is illegal.  
He hops down from the truck, and Cas feels a tickle of pleasure deep in his belly because he does, in fact, have a salt and pepper beard. His flannel shirt is stained with the black grease of car engines, much like his fingers, and he has a bit of paunch around his belly. He doesn't smile at Cas but there's a welcoming warmth to this eyes, glittering out from underneath his surprisingly clean baseball cap.  
"I"m Bobby Singer," he introduces himself, holding out a hand for Castiel to shake once he's gotten out of his sad little car.  
"Castiel Novak," he says, forcing out a smile as he shakes Bobby's calloused hand. 

Bobby ignores him for the car after that, peeking around the interior before opening up the hood. He can't see anything immediately wrong with it; he looks at Cas, lips pursing together in thought for a moment. "Get y'groceries out the back seat and put 'em in the truck. They'll stay cooler there. Hop up in the passenger seat and I'll sort y'car out." Castiel fidgets, hesitates, but with a stern look from Bobby he does as he's told, bundling plastic bags of food and toiletries into his arms before heaving them into the floorspace of the tow truck's passenger seat before hauling himself inside and buckling his seatbelt. 

Bobby doesn't take long to set up his car to be towed; he's back beside him within twenty minutes, offering what Castiel thinks is as much of a smile as he can manage. Cas returns it and says, "Thank you for the ride."  
"'S no worries, kid. Y'ain't goin' anywhere in that hunk'a junk."

Cas sits quietly for the rest of the ride, fretting about how much all of this is going to cost. His heart throbs wetly in his chest again and he swears he can feel his breakfast rising, ready to come out in a rush of vomit. He can't let that happen, no; it's pathetic. He recalls the time he was too anxious about his first day of high school and vomited on his new leather shoes while his brother, Gabriel, soothingly rubbed between his shoulder blades and up through his hair. He wishes Gabriel were here now; he'd know what to do in a situation like this. Hell, he might even be able to diagnose the problem with his car.  
Castiel worries the inside of his cheek with his teeth until he tastes blood. He focuses on the salty copper-sweet tang of it, the way it sinks into the gaps of his teeth as it mixes with saliva. He swallows it away, sponging the wound into submissive clotting (or whatever oral wounds do, he doesn't remember) as Bobby pulls into a lot full of abandoned cars with the rumble of engines being tested closer to the main building.

The truck trundles along until it pulls into a mock garage, which is more of a carport, and Cas can see a tall, slightly bow-legged man leaning over the open hood of a sleek, black car. Castiel doesn't know its name, or the year it was made, but he can appreciate its silky flanks and shiny silver trim.  
He slithers out of the tow truck when Bobby shuts it down, wondering what to do with his groceries as he pulls them out, the thin plastic handles cutting into his fingers. 

"Catch yourself a kept boy, eh Bobby?" the bow-legged man teases, having turned around to face Castiel and his apparent boss.  
Bobby rolls his eyes and lets loose an exasperated sigh, "Git over 'ere, bonehead, and help me with the kid's car." They unhook it from the tow truck together and it slides down the slope of the ramp; Castiel looks down into his grocery bags, where the ice-cream is beginning to leak on his bag of french fries. He frowns and sets them down with the intent of rummaging through until Bobby's gravelly voice cuts through the air again, "Dean, show 'im where the kitchen is." 

Castiel holds his breath. Dean, the man with the car and the bow-legs and good Lord, green eyes. Castiel's mesmerised as Dean comes closer, wiping his hands clean on an old rag and picking up two of the four bags of groceries. "This way," he says, and smiles a smile that wrinkles the skin around his eyes and shows the beginning of pink gums.  
Castiel follows dumbly, waddling behind him with bags of fruit juice and oatmeal. Dean's already stuffing the bag of 'frozen' foods into the freezer, and he holds the refrigerator door open for Cas to add his bags in, too.

It's an easy feat, until he's finished with the groceries and has nothing else to distract himself with. He pulls at the hem of his button-down shirt, with the sleeves rolled to his elbows and Dean watches, admiring long fingers and pale forearms. 

"Dean Winchester," he announces, once the fridge door has been closed. He holds out a hand covered in callouses that could rival Bobby's.  
Cas shakes it slowly, shyly, eyes flickering from Dean's mouth to his eyes to the freckles sprinkled across his cheekbones. "Castiel Novak."  
Dean grins wolfishly, head turning some as he hears Bobby curse loudly from the garage where he's pushing the dead car into place. 

"Well, Castiel. Whaddya say we go and look at that car o' yours?" 

Castiel nods, the movement jerky, picking at his cuticles as he follows Dean outside. He watches the man walking, the way his hips sway and his jeans hang low on his pelvis, and he knows that he's not going to be able to pay attention to a single word concerning the wellbeing of his Golf.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean and Bobby spend ten minutes leaning over Castiel's tiny car, prodding and poking, checking oil levels and radiator pressure. They mumble to each other the entire time, words that mean almost nothing to Castiel other than sounding expensive. His heart thuds in his chest when he thinks about it, the fact that he won't be able to pay for his car to be fixed. All of his money goes towards overpriced school books, food, and the minuscule amount he sets aside every week with the hope of finding himself a cheap apartment. The college dormitory is Hell, and the only thing that eases the grating noise of endless parties is Chuck's company.  
He feels like he's going to vomit again and so he focuses on the way the denim of Dean's jeans stretch tight across the backs of his thighs when he looms over the engine, mouth pressed into a straight line. 

He and Bobby mutter to each other for a few more minutes, all car-talk, before Dean beckons for Castiel to join them, rubbing dirty fingers clean on his shirt. "Cas, man, I dunno how this thing hasn't killed ya yet."  
Castiel smiles sheepishly and tries to smother the blush that comes with the nickname - Chuck calls him Cas all the time, so does Gabriel, but from Dean, it's different. It's warm, deep, friendly; it sets something warm and nervous coiling in the pit of Castiel's stomach like a spring.  
"What's the matter with it?" he asks eventually, staring down at the engine, forlorn.  
Dean obviously doesn't know where to start; he places a hand on the front of the Golf and leans against it, the other coming up to ruffle his short-cropped hair. Castiel watches it spring back into place and wonders, briefly, whether he styles it like that or if his hair is naturally _perfect_. 

"I reckon your head gasket's busted, but we can't be sure until we get it runnin' again. You need a new battery," he raps his knuckle against it, "Your radiator ain't lookin' too hot, you got rust comin' outta your ears…" He stops listing issues with the car when he notices the way Castiel's face has fallen, how he's staring down at his shoes and kicking at an abandoned nut on the concrete.  
"What's the matter, Cas? The car special or somethin'?"  
Castiel shakes his head vigorously. Bobby slaps him on the shoulder once, probably an attempt to be reassuring, before he trundles off to tend to whatever it is he does with his day.  
He looks at Dean, at his soft green eyes and his quiet smile, and he feels like he's going to cry. "I can't afford any of this," he says, and his voice is barely above a whisper, stretched taut with his fretting. He thinks about the money he's saved for settling into a new apartment, for buying furniture, and his heart begins to ache. 

He's going to have a breakdown in front of Dean Winchester, a man he's known for less than an hour, in a dirty garage full of broken cars. He hiccups. 

"How much will it cost?" he asks, looking at Dean with those bright blue eyes. "Can you give me an estimate? I have eight hundred dollars saved, is that enough?"  
Castiel finds his answer in the way Dean's mouth presses itself into a sad line, in the way his eyes soften and his features wither with sympathy.  
"I dunno, Cas," he answers, and Castiel knows he's lying. It's going to be expensive, more money than he's got, more money than he can earn. He looks down at his feet and feels his eyes prickle with tears, his nose already beginning to run as a firm knot forms in his throat. He tries to swallow it down, sniffling some before Dean's big, firm hand cups his shoulder. "Hey, now," he says, his voice low and warm and soothing, "It'll be alright. We can figure it out. C'mon." Dean pulls on his shoulder gently and then his hand is gone, gesturing for Cas to follow. 

Dean leads him back to the kitchen, where he pulls out an old rickety chair from a battered wooden table covered in small car parts and the occasional tool and cloth. Cas sits down on the chair Dean pulled out for him with a defeated sigh, folding his hands in his lap and digging his nails into his palms.  
Dean gets him a glass of water and places it in front of him before he takes a seat, too.  
For a moment, it's quiet between them; there's the soft sound of the radio playing an old song from the 60s. Castiel knows it, buried somewhere deep in his memories; his father played it for his mother when he was young. It's meaningless, but upbeat and bright - _Gonna happen in the city, be with my girl, she's so pretty. She looks fine tonight, she is outta sight to me._

Castiel listens to the song, toes flexing in his shoes, following the beat, until Dean clears his throat somewhat awkwardly, his hands folding themselves together between his knees. He rests his forearms on his thighs, leaning close to study Castiel with grass-green eyes riddled with specks of earthy brown. Castiel's stunned for a moment, mouth opening and closing like a gaping goldfish staring from its aquarium, before he regains control of his basic motor skills.  
He takes a sip of water, steeling himself, and Dean nudges at him again, murmuring, "I'm here to listen, Cas. I'm gonna help you, alright? We'll find a way to pay for the car 'nd it'll all be peachy." 

Castiel grimaces, his expression watery because he feels like he's going to cry again; he doesn't deserve Dean's sympathy. Kind, warm Dean, gentle Dean, smiling Dean. Dean touching Castiel's bare forearm with rough fingertips. Goose pimples flood across Castiel's skin and he ducks his head, embarrassed and ashamed that Dean is going so out of his way to comfort him. 

"It's just money," he finally starts, waving one hand in the air as if highlighting all of his problems. He's speaking to the floor. "I'm a busboy in a diner; I work part time minimum wage, and I can't find another job because I have no skills set. The money I do get is split up between food and text books for college, and some of it I put into my savings account - I want to move out of the dormitory. That's the eight hundred dollars I can spare." He doesn't know why he's saying all of these things, but he can't stop now, no matter how twisted his voice is getting, no matter how much he wishes he could stop the tears from spilling over his waterlines.  
"I'm not going anywhere in life if I don't get a degree, Dean. I'm not like you. I can't fix cars or fix things around the house; I'm _useless_."  
The word vomit ends with a hiccupping sob that Castiel barely manages to stifle. He hides his face in his hands, the heels of his palms digging into his eye sockets as he tries to stop the tears from forming.  
Dean gets up with a scrape of metal chair legs across abused linoleum, and smooths a soothing hand between Castiel's shoulder blades, following the slope of his spine. He does this until Castiel's shoulders stop shaking, until his breathing regulates, until he looks up at Dean with blinking, puffy eyes. Dean thinks of the drowned cat he found in the lake near his family home when he was eleven. 

He presses a warm hand into Castiel's hair, kneading his scalp in a way he hopes is helpful. Castiel's eyes flutter shut and he relaxes in the chair some, enough for him to stop picking at dry skin around his nail beds and pulling at already frayed cuticles.  
"You don't have to pay all at once, y'know," Dean says softly, his voice low, afraid to shatter the peace that's settled over them now that Cas' tears have stopped flowing. "I can talk to Bobby about it; we've done it before. You can pay in increments. You won't have to give up your apartment fund if you don't want. We can work around this." Castiel's eyes stay closed as he thinks it through, rolls the idea around in his head over and over again; it means he'd be able to spend time with Dean. A lot of time with Dean. But it also means that he would have to suffer the woes of Lawrence public transport. He feels his stomach flip and tie itself into complicated knots, the butterflies of his anxiety beating bile into his oesophagus with the insistent sweeping of their wings.

He opens his eyes and studies Dean's expression carefully; it's all concern, every line and every indentation. "I don't have a way to get to my classes without my car," he whispers, "Or to work. I can't… I can't take the bus. I don't do buses. I _can't_ do buses." They cost money, and they're full of people, and Cas doesn't think he could stand to sit on a seat that people have probably had sex in.  
He feels like he and Dean are playing a game of _Operation_ , in which Castiel is the poor sap full of apple cores and funny bones and Dean is picking through him and his soul with a pair of cheaply made tweezers.  
"I can give you rides, Cas. Bobby said you weren't far from the diner when you broke down." 

Castiel feels like he's going to vomit. His face goes hot and his palms begin to sweat; he reaches out and clutches the glass of water like it's a lifeline, taking three long gulps from it. He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and stares at the floor again, at the cracks beginning to show in the corners and the scrapes worn through the acrylic tiling where chairs have been dragged across it again and again.  
"I couldn't ask you to do that, Dean," he mutters, somewhat irritated, now. He doesn't deserve Dean's kindness; the man's a stranger with a big heart, and Castiel knows that he has done nothing to earn such affections.  
"You're not asking, Cas. It's no big deal. Bobby acts like a hardass but he's a teddybear. Honest. What time do you work?"

Castiel answers Dean's questions robotically. They come to the conclusion, after several minutes of hushed arguing, that Castiel will get himself to and from his dorm room to his classes, and Dean will pick him up for work and take him home at the end of his shift; Dean seems satisfied with it and Castiel feels as though the guilt is going to swallow him whole.  
Dean offers Castiel a ride home and he accepts; he has no way of getting there otherwise, and Dean might as well learn his address. 

Castiel follows Dean to the Impala and crawls into the passenger seat after carefully stashing his rescued groceries in the floorspace in the back. Castiel wonders what he's going to tell Chuck, and Dean wonders how the hell he's going to keep his hands to himself with this beautiful man beside him every day.


End file.
